Port-Louis- Mauritius (PANA) -- Three Mauritian women's organisations - Soroptimist International, Media Watch Organisation and the Mauritian Association of Women Entrepreneurs - have demanded tougher penalties against rape, after four rapists were sentenced to eight years in jail last week. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- President Thabo Mbeki on Monday saluted South African women for the role they played in the struggle against apartheid. Full text...

Johannesburg- South Africa (PANA) -- The University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg has honoured three South African female researchers for their contribution to the fight against AIDS, TB and Malaria. Full text...

Johannesburg- South Africa (PANA) -- Civil society groups in South Africa have planned an awareness week on the proposed Sexual Offences Bill to commence on National Women's Day on 9 August. Full text...

Moroni- Comoros (PANA) -- A midwife from Mitsamiouli village, Mrs Djoueria Abdallah made history by becoming the first woman to join the Comoran Union parliament. Full text...

Kinshasa- DR Congo (PANA) -- Workers at the Katana-based Integrated Development Centre (CDI) in South-Kivu have charged in a fresh report that insurgents led by Gen. Full text...

Banjul- Gambia (PANA) -- Thousands of Gambian women have signed a declaration to President Yahya Jammeh calling for gender balance in all government institutions, public enterprises and private organisations. Full text...

New York- US (PANA) -- The Commission for Refugee Women and Children has welcomed news that Charlotte Atyam, who was abducted eight years ago in northern Uganda by rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) was reunited Wednesday with her mother, Angelina Atyam. Full text...

Johannesburg- South Africa (PANA) -- Women from South Africa and Burundi started meeting in Johannesburg Monday to discuss what role the people of the "fair sex" will play in the troubled country's post-election era. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Kenya will establish a National Commission on Gender and Development in a move meant to step up the government's commitment in mainstreaming gender into national development processes, the country's minister in charge of Gender, Sports and Culture has said. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Kenya Vice President Moody Awori conceded here Thursday that many leaders in the continent had failed their people because of pursuing narrow and selfish interests, misusing available resources for personal gain rather than the general good. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- Encouraged by the declaration of African Union leaders on gender equality, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) has announced its willingness to keep on supporting initiatives for the advancement of women on the continent. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- President Abdelaziz Bouteflika disclosed here Tuesday that new provisions would soon be introduced into the Algerian family code to "balance out the rights and obligations of both spouses". Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has deplored the continued use of sexual and gender-based violence as a weapon of war in African conflicts. Full text...

Port Louis- Mauritius (PANA) -- At least 100 persons marched silently Friday for more than an hour in the streets of Port Louis, carrying banners that denounced domestic violence on the island. Full text...

Lusaka- Zambia (PANA) -- Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa has come under criticism from civil society activists after sacking Community Development deputy minister Rosemary Chipampe, who was in charge of women's affairs. Full text...

Maputo- Mozambique (PANA) -- Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano on Thursday praised the fight waged by the Pan-African Women's Organisation (PAWO) in the struggle to overcome absolute poverty and illiteracy, HIV/AIDS and other issues that affect the majority of Africans. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- When African leaders meet here next week, the first item for discussion will be the gender issue and how their governments have been handling it in their national development programmes. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- When African education ministers convened in Nairobi this week to tackle the challenges facing the girls in schools, it dawned on many that despite an overall gloom facing girls, countries are pursuing various innovative return-to-school formulas. Full text...

Nouakchott- Mauritania (PANA) -- More than 100 delegates are attending a symposium on Muslim women in the era of democracy organised by Mauritania's pro-government Union for Democracy and Progress (UDP), which opened here Friday. Full text...

Cotonou- Benin (PANA) -- The authorities in Benin are contemplating special regulations to ensure the recruitment and maintenance of female teachers in the rural areas with a view to improving the education of the girl child, official sources hinted here Thursday. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- Limited knowledge about sex is trapping many Ethiopian girls into sexual abuse and sexually transmitted infections, according to the head of women's affairs office of the Addis Ababa city government, Mekia Mohammed. Full text...

Cape Town- South Africa (PANA) -- A report highlighting the link between violence against women and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases in the region has spurred the Cape Town City Council to launch a proactive empowerment campaign amongst the youth to turn the tide against both ills. Full text...

Johannesburg- South Africa (PANA) -- The ministry of Education in South Africa has urged women to take up contracts the department was offering in the development of infrastructure. Full text...

Porto-Novo- Benin (PANA) -- Benin's People and Family Code, which was reviewed in Parliament last Thursday now recognises only monogamous marriages duly certified by a civil status registrar. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- A senior official has conceded that social and cultural factors were impeding education of the girl child within pastoralist communities in Kenya's arid and semi arid (ASAL) regions, which extend over 75 percent the country's surface area. Full text...

Johannesburg- South Africa (PANA) -- Women from South Africa and Burundi are converging on Pretoria for a Women's Initiative workshop beginning Monday. Full text...

Paris- France (PANA) -- More than 100 women from Africa took part in an international colloquium organised here Tuesday on the theme "Women at the service of peace". Full text...

Johannesburg- South Africa (PANA) -- A woman is killed every 6 hours in South Africa by her intimate partner, according to the first national study of female homicides in South Africa released here. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- On the sidelines of a conference here on the practice Ishnino Shuriye, a woman who performed female genital mutilation (FGM) in the northeastern Kenyan district of Garissa told PANA she could earn up to 3,500 Kenyan shillings. Full text...

Johannesburg- South Africa (PANA) -- Minister of Minerals and Energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka will serve as acting President of South Africa while President Thabo Mbeki and deputy President Jacob Zuma are away "over the next few days". Full text...

Moroni- Comoros (PANA) -- Andreas Claudine Rasoanirina has been appointed as a secretary general of the Indian Ocean Commission, succeeding Wilfrid Bertile. Full text...

Ekuvinjelweni- Swaziland (PANA) -- Chieftaincy in Africa remains the exclusive preserve of men for the most part, and so being a woman chief imposes more tasking efforts to achieve exemplary goals to dissolve the gender stereotype at this level of political leadership. Full text...

Munyonyo- Uganda (PANA) -- Women delegates to the 39th African Development Bank (ADB) group meeting here, led Mozambican Prime Minister Louisa Diogo have welcomed plans by the bank to initiate action against gender inequality, asserting that 2004 was a watershed in the age-long struggle for gender equality in Africa. Full text...

Munyonyo- Uganda (PANA) -- African Development Bank (ADB) Group has pledged an active role in the fight against gender inequality in Africa that has become an impediment to the continent's desired economic growth. Full text...

Kampala- Uganda (PANA) -- The failure of African countries to incorporate a gender perspective in designing and implementing development strategies is clearly the missing link in achieving sustained growth, the Executive Secretary for the UN Economic Commission of Africa said here Monday. Full text...

Libreville- Gabon (PANA) -- The ministry of Family, Women's Promotion and Child Protection announced Saturday that Gabon would celebrate Mothers' Day on 23 May, two weeks ahead of the actual date of 6 June. Full text...

Munyonyo- Uganda (PANA) -- The issues of poverty and women and how to mainstream gender in economic development will feature prominently during the meeting of the Africa Development Bank (ADB) and UN Economic Commission for Africa (UN-ECA) forum of African Finance, Planning, and Economic Development Ministers that opens here Friday. Full text...

Malabo- Equatorial Guinea (PANA) -- Isabel Eraul Ivina, a member of the ruling Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea (PDGE), Tuesday took the oath of office to become the second female Mayor of Malabo, the Equatorial Guinea capital. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- Africa's new war rages violently, but in many areas it is under cover of silence, while the cries of its victims are deliberately hushed up simply because they are women. Full text...

Banjul- Gambia (PANA) -- The Executive Director of the Gambia- based African Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS), Mrs. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- Without integration of gender perspectives in all reconstruction processes, African countries emerging from armed conflicts would not be able to ensure the creation of more equitable and sustainable societies, a top UN official said here Monday. Full text...

Abidjan- Côte d'Ivoire (PANA) -- The African Development Bank (ADB) Group has agreed to grant Ethiopia 1. Full text...

Addis Ababa- Ethiopia (PANA) -- Representatives of women's groups in the strife-torn African Great Lakes region will gather in Addis Ababa next week to kick-start a programme aimed at enhancing the role of women in peace building processes. Full text...

Kampala- Uganda (PANA) -- Uganda women politicians have indicated plans to gang up and press for more than 40 percent representation in government. Full text...

Nairobi- Kenya (PANA) -- Anti-female genital mutilation lobbyists in Kenya's central Rift Valley district of Marakwet are alarmed at the escalating cases of female circumcisions in the area recently and now they want the authorities to step in to stop the malpractice They claimed that nine out of every 10 women in the district have undergone the rite and consequently are facing birth complications. Full text...

Embu- Kenya (PANA) -- Kenya will next June present its charter on the rights of the child to the Geneva International Convention, the country's chief children's officer Noah Sanganyi said Wednesday. Full text...

Banjul- Gambia (PANA) -- The Gambia government and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Wednesday launched a report on sexual abuse and exploitation of children, following a country- wide study to determine the prevalence of the problem in the country. Full text...

Lusaka- Zambia (PANA) -- The UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) has lamented the increasing rate of child abuse and gender related violence cases in Zambia, noting that in 2003, cases of this nature increased in Lusaka alone to 1,800 from 865 in the previous year. Full text...

Maputo- Mozambique (PANA) -- Graca Machel, the widow of Mozambique's first President, Samora Machel, has urged the youth of Southern Africa to commit themselves fully to the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Full text...